THE VORTEX: GETTING NOWHERE FAST – Except down

The pope’s recent trip to South Asia has, of course, prompted worldwide media attention on the Church in that region of the world. It also has given rise to reports about the condition of the Church in other parts of the world, namely Europe. Those articles found their way into Catholic publications in Asia, and what a sorry report it must have been for Asian Catholics to read about the near-death knell of the Faith in formerly Catholic Europe. Here was the headline and sub-headline: “All over Europe, Churches Creatively Rethink as Numbers Plummet: A huge drop in church membership and participation since the 1960s has accelerated over the past decade, despite determined Church efforts to reach out with new forms of evangelization.”read more